By: Caroline Glick – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org
The real issue dividing Israeli society isn’t former premier Benjamin Netanyahu or the economy, but something far more basic: Israeli society is being torn apart by the issue of national sovereignty.
Most of Israel’s commentators insist that Tuesday’s Knesset elections—the fifth in fewer than four years—are about the same thing the last four were about: Benjamin Netanyahu. If you vote for Netanyahu’s Likud Party, or for the other three parties in his right-religious bloc, then you are for Netanyahu. If you vote for caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, or for any of the members of his left-Arab bloc, then you are against Netanyahu. Nothing else is up for grabs.
The notion that politics in Israel can be boiled down to whether a person loves or hates Netanyahu was never true, at least for voters. Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, Gideon Sa’ar and their colleagues in the Yamina and New Hope parties who bolted the right and formed the current left-Arab government are rightly viewed as having betrayed their voters. Last May they put their hatred and envy of Netanyahu above their professed ideology and their voters to oust their camp from power and give Israel its first post-Zionist government.
Today, there is no “Never Bibi” right. Bennett isn’t running. Shaked is about to be wiped out at the polls. Sa’ar has joined Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s leftist National Unity Party.
cont’d…
https://www.jns.org/opinion/jewish-sovereignty-is-on-the-ballot/